Pandemic impacts student learning outcomes in Chinook School Division
The COVID-19 pandemic is starting to have an impact on reading, writing and math results in the Chinook School Division, but there are ongoing efforts to provide learning supports to teachers.
Details were provided during the presentation of the reading, writing and math status report at the regular Chinook School Division board meeting that took place via video conference, Dec. 14.
Superintendent of Learning Bob Vavra said the school division had to respond and adjust to the new situation created by the pandemic.
“There’s been a real change in how we do businesses and what we’re doing to support schools,” he noted.
The Chinook School Division has set a goal that 80 per cent of students will be meeting or exceeding expectations in reading, writing and math by June 2021. The Chinook Balanced Literacy and Math Momentum initiatives have made a real difference to improve learning outcomes during the past decade through intervention strategies for struggling students and a coaching model to improve teaching practices.
“When we started that in 2009, it was about 60-63 per cent of our students were reading at level and 47 per cent of our students in math were at level,” he said. “So if you go over all the cohorts, basically 200 kids out of 400 are now reading at levels that weren’t when we started this in 2009.”
The June 2019 results highlighted the progress made to achieve the division goal. According to those results, overall 78.9 per cent of students were meeting or exceeding expectations in reading, 79.1 per cent were meeting or exceeding expectations in writing, and 80.3 per cent were meeting or exceeding expectations in math.
The impact of the pandemic on regular learning is evident in the most recent results. Vavra said the fall results were down 20 per cent compared to the same time last year.
“We usually gain about 10 per cent from the fall to the spring,” he mentioned. “So we were at about 72 per cent last year. This year we’re at 50 per cent.”
He added that the results in the Chinook School Division are similar to the impact of the pandemic on learning elsewhere in Canada.
“I’ve seen standardized assessments from the Maritimes and recently from Alberta, and they’re saying kids are anywhere from four to eight months behind already because of the pandemic,” he said. “It’s simply because they’re not reading and they’re not doing the writing and math that they were before, and some of it is because they’re just not participating in some of the supplemental learning or the learning from home is just a little bit different than face-to-face learning.”
The efforts to improve the learning outcomes of students in the Chinook School Division have become increasingly difficult since 2015 due to budgetary constraints, which resulted in staff reductions and less time for professional development of staff, as well as fewer resources for literacy and math initiatives.
The coaching of teachers is an integral aspect of the school division’s literacy and math initiatives, but there has been a reduction of six coaches. The number of professional development days were reduced from 27 to seven days. There has been a reduction of 69 per cent in the budget for literacy initiatives since 2011, and the budget for math initiatives has experienced a reduction of 80 per cent since 2013. The COVID-19 pandemic is now creating an addition strain on already stressed budgets.
The need to keep cohorts and groups smaller during the pandemic means that teachers are now doing interventions instead of the staff who were trained to assist struggling students.
“It’s those interventions that are struggling at this point in time,” he said. “So not only do we have a pandemic, but we’re not being able to put in the supports to the kids that really need it. And spending. We’re spending in areas that we haven’t had to before, and then also curriculum renewal is coming too. So we don’t know what the impact of that is going to be long-term.”
Vavra referred to the successful efforts of coordinators in the curriculum department to respond to the pandemic situation and provide support to teachers in the new learning environment.
“They were able to put structures in place and move some of our coaching supports to support teachers in schools, not only when classrooms were out, but when schools were out,” he said. “And even parents. We’ve been working a lot with parents on websites and things like
that to support them through this process. So that’s been a big positive.”
The Ministry of Education is continuing with the curriculum renewal process, and curriculum coordinators still had to proceed with the implementation of new curricula for French immersion, robotics and financial literacy.
“I’m very proud of what we did there,” he said. “We have a whole bunch of schools now that are teaching robotics, even though it’s a challenging time to do that. I think we have nine schools this year that will be teaching robotics. … And every school in Chinook has the opportunity to take financial literacy this year. That’s a great celebration.”
The efforts of staff make it possible to celebrate successes, but Vavra cautioned that the scheduling and staffing of intervention programs without additional resources are becoming increasingly difficult. This has become even more problematic during the pandemic. A lack of investment in the system will make it difficult to maintain or improve math and literacy results.
“We need to reinvest a little bit in our core business there, the reading, writing and math, and maybe look at our supports and specifically in the schools,” he said. “That’s where you would make most of the difference.”
Several of the curriculum and learning coordinators participated in the presentation to the board meeting. They highlighted the initiatives that have been implemented during the pandemic to support schools with moving to learning from home and then with moving back to learning at school.
Curriculum Coordinator Curtis Biem said an important aspect of this support
has been to help schools and teachers to prepare for and to make the transition to remote learning. There have been COVID-19 cases at different schools since the reopening of schools in September, which made it necessary for classes or entire schools to move back to a period of remote learning.
“Our schools are filled with amazing teachers,” he observed. “So we just want to try to make sure that they can continue to do the great work that they do, but now moving into that remote situation by encouraging them that they will continue with their balanced literacy, will continue with their guided math, and they’ll continue to make a difference in the education of students.”
Teachers are provided with information about online best practices, which will assist them to create online norms, use videoconferencing, and create recorded micro lessons. The coordinators even collected information from schools about the lessons learned from moving to an online learning format, which can be shared with other schools.
Math Coordinator Denyne Fontaine spoke about the Reopen Chinook website that was created to provide teachers with learning supports.
“In the spring, when the COVID shutdown happened and we were doing supplemental learning, our website quickly developed to support teachers, but it has changed and morphed and shifted now into teacher supports for learning with a big focus right now on how do I teach virtually and how do I keep students engaged,” she said.
The website includes resources such as a slideshow to help teachers to get started with remote learning, and a webinar to provide guidance to teachers to transition from remote learning back to face-to-face learning. There are helpful tips and tricks for learning from home, for example a video with suggestions for sharing strategy lessons remotely. The website includes remote learning planning templates for the different grade levels.
“We even have some examples of daily plans with mini lessons from some of our teachers here in Chinook,” she said. “It’s really helpful for teachers to see what other people in the division are doing.”
There are sections on this website with literacy and math resources. A specific page was created to cater to the needs of Hutterian teachers, who need to create paper packages for their students.
“A lot of public schools are also accessing this page for ideas when they have students that don’t have access to technology,” Fontaine said.
Student Service Coordinator Ken Slade provided details about the resources and support provided to schools and teachers as they transition back to faceto-face learning after a period of remote learning. The intention is to support the social and emotional needs of students and staff, and to check in directly with those impacted by a situation where someone contracted the COVID-19 virus.
Vavra applauded the work done by the coordinators to create all the resources in a very short time in response to the pandemic. He felt these resources have been really beneficial to schools to respond to a changing situation.
“This fall we were into a new situation where students could work from home and then of course we had the COVID cases and classes being shut down, and we found that schools needed a little bit more support,” he said. “I think that really helped them, because just having a plan really alleviates a lot of anxiety, both for teachers and for parents when you go into this model.”